Patents Examined by Jay Au Patel
  • Patent number: 8953035
    Abstract: A particle image velocimetry system is provided which supplies tracer particles to a flow field around an object (12) from tracer particle supply means, takes an image of reflected light by imaging means (32A, 32B) by irradiating the tracer particles twice with laser light at different times, and determines a velocity vector of the flow field based on the two images obtained of the tracer particles. The two images are each divided into a plurality of test regions, and when first peak value (fp)/second peak value (sp)?1.2 is satisfied by comparison between a first peak value fp and a second peak value sp of a cross-correlation value of a luminance pattern of tracer particles in each test region of the two images, it is determined that the reliability of the velocity vector is high. Thus, it is possible to enhance the precision of measurement of the state of flow by reliably determining erroneous vectors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 5, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Yuichi Fukuchi, Takashi Yoshino, Minoru Teramura, Gensuke Hoshino
  • Patent number: 8949883
    Abstract: In one method embodiments, providing a transport stream to a client device, the transport stream comprising a head stream and a tail stream, the head stream and the tail stream each comprising a compressed video sequence; providing information in a transport stream packet associated with the head stream, the information configured to cause the client device to selectively control an output of at least one of a plurality of pictures of the head stream yet to be output from a decoded picture buffer (DPB) at an out-point from the head stream to the trail stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Arturo A. Rodriguez, Samie Beheydt, Jan Louis De Lameillieure, James Ka Sin Au
  • Patent number: 8948249
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for encoding content includes receiving source content and encoding the source content into a plurality of content streams. The encoding includes aligning the plurality of content streams at Group of Pictures (GOP) boundaries. The encoding further includes embedding, in each content stream, metadata identifying segmentation points within the content stream, where the segmentation points correspond to one or more of the GOP boundaries.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC
    Inventors: Wendell Sun, Jing Yang Chen, John R. Shumate
  • Patent number: 8941718
    Abstract: A 3D video processing apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention includes an offset value complementing unit which complements an offset value of the first picture, by assigning a value which is equal to or greater than the first offset value and equal to or smaller than the second offset value, the first offset value representing the smaller one of the offset value assigned to the second picture temporally preceding the first picture and the offset value assigned to the third picture temporally succeeding the first picture, and the second offset value representing the larger one of the offset value assigned to the second picture and the offset value assigned to the third picture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2015
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Kengo Nishimura, Yohei Ikeuchi
  • Patent number: 8934014
    Abstract: A method for switching a monitored location of a plurality of image capture devices using an electronic device obtains a current direction of the electronic device, and determines a current image capture device corresponding to the current direction of the electronic device from the plurality of image capture devices. The method further sends a switch command to the current image capture device, receives captured images from the current image capture device, and displays the received captured images on a display screen of the electronic device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 13, 2015
    Assignee: ScienBiziP Consulting(Shenzhen)Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hou-Hsien Lee, Chang-Jung Lee, Chih-Ping Lo
  • Patent number: 8933994
    Abstract: Systems and methods for determining a customized cosmetic formulation. In one method, a user is guided to capture an image of a skin region with known lighting and color characteristics, and the image is processed to provide calibrated skin color information. A customized cosmetic formulation is automatically determined for the user based on the calibrated skin color information. In another method, a user is interactively guided through capture of one or more skin region images using a device having an image sensor. The skin region images are processed to provide calibrated skin color information, which is compared to a ground truth data set to identify a set of closest known values in the ground truth data set. A customized cosmetic formulation is automatically determined for the user based on the comparison.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 13, 2015
    Assignee: Skin Republic, Inc.
    Inventors: David B. Gross, Leslie Y. Harvill
  • Patent number: 8928733
    Abstract: A method for transmitting and receiving service-compatible 3D stereo digital TV signal broadcast supports both MPEG-2 TS-level and ES-level multiplexing when left and right compressed bitstreams are multiplexed and when service compatibility is enabled.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 6, 2015
    Assignee: Korea Electronics Technology Institute
    Inventors: Byeong Ho Choi, HwaSeon Shin, Jae Gon Kim, ByungTak Lee, Euy Doc Jang
  • Patent number: 8922656
    Abstract: A video processing system (10) for automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) provides an interface between video cameras (14, 16) and a host computer (20) through a single high speed USB connection (18). The system (10) supports four simultaneous composite video channels (28A, 28B, 28C, 28D) with two channels dedicated to an IR monochrome video and two channels dedicated to color video. Compression software incorporates a high speed memory for buffering and stripping unnecessary data from a digitized data stream. Monochrome channel data and color channel data are marked with an incrementing index to tag them with frame identification. As a result, processing software in the host computer can re-align the monochrome and color video information after processing a license plate image, regardless of the order of data arrival. Color overview and monochrome recognition images are provided at the same time, and thus show the same plate or vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 30, 2014
    Assignee: NDI Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Alan Quinn, Tharaka Goonetilleke
  • Patent number: 8922651
    Abstract: A moving object detection method and an image processing system thereof are provided. First, a pixel-wise distance of a received image to a reference image is computed to obtain a distance map. A histogram analysis is performed on the distance map to obtain a distance distribution. An entropy value of the distance distribution is computed and a peak distance value which is with a maximum occurrence probability in the distance distribution is searched out. Then, by using a mapping rule, the entropy value and the peak distance value are transformed into a decision threshold value. The decision threshold value is applied in classifying the pixels of the distance map into a group of foreground attributes and a group of background attributes and thereby moving objects in the current image are obtained.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 13, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 30, 2014
    Assignee: Industrial Technology Research Institute
    Inventors: Tai-Hui Huang, Tsung-Chan Li, Wen-Hao Wang
  • Patent number: 8896672
    Abstract: An image display device for displaying a 3-Dimensional (3D) image and a method for operating the same are disclosed. The image display device includes a user input unit configured to receive an item selection signal for some of one or more items included in a User Interface (UI) image, a control unit configured to generate a detailed image of a selection item selected by the item selection signal as a 3D image, and a display unit configured to display the detailed image. A user can select and receives an UI image or items included therein as a 3D image, and select a 2D/3D mode of the displayed UI image so as to control a sense of depth thereof. If a plurality of UI images is displayed, the image display device can display UI images on multiple layers with senses of depth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2014
    Assignee: LG Electronics Inc.
    Inventors: Jaehak Lee, Youngsun Joo, Jaekyung Lee
  • Patent number: 8896684
    Abstract: A system and method for enhancing display content includes receiving a video signal made up of video frames from at least one image sensor and identifying a driving path based at least in part on steering wheel data. The system and method also includes performing a first segmentation on the at least one video frame to divide the at least one video frame into a plurality of segments containing input pixel data, altering input pixel data based on a segment associated with the input pixel data to create output pixel data and providing the at least one video frame comprising the output pixel data to a display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2014
    Assignee: TK Holdings Inc.
    Inventors: Adrian Valentin Muresan, William Todd Watson
  • Patent number: 8885026
    Abstract: An imaging device, comprising: an imaging unit having first pixels configured to photoelectrically convert a subject image which is imaged with a photographic lens and to output a first image signal, and second pixels configured to be placed discretely between the first pixels so as to photoelectrically convert each of a plurality of subject images which come from divided pupil regions formed by dividing a pupil region of the photographic lens and to output second image signals having a phase difference; an imaging control unit; a parallax information calculation unit; a plane image generation unit; and a blurring processing unit configured to determine target pixels in the plane image which are to be subjected to blurring processing, based on the parallax information calculated by the parallax information calculation unit, and to perform blurring processing on the determined target pixels in the plane image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 11, 2014
    Assignee: FUJIFILM Corporation
    Inventor: Hiroshi Endo
  • Patent number: 8848786
    Abstract: A method, medium, and apparatus for encoding and/or decoding video by generating a scalable bitstream supporting at least two bit-depths with forward compatibility, wherein the scalable bitstream comprises a base layer bitstream including a base quantization level and a base quantization parameter corresponding to a base bit-depth, and an enhancement layer bitstream including residue between an extended quantization level and a compensated quantization level that is predicted from the base quantization level, and a refined quantization parameter for refining the difference between an extended bit-depth and the base bit-depth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 10, 2008
    Date of Patent: September 30, 2014
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Dae-sung Cho, Dae-hee Kim, Woong-il Choi, Jae-woo Jung
  • Patent number: 8848788
    Abstract: The present principles provides a method and apparatus for jointly adjusting the rounding offset and the quantization step size on a macroblock level to improve the perceptual quality of the fine details of the encoded image. In one implementation, the content of the pictures is analyzed and the smooth regions are identified. A quantization step size value for the picture is initially defined and a rounding offset is adaptively assigned to each macroblock based on the content characteristics. The quantization step size is then calculated for the a particular macroblock according to another content characteristic of the macroblock such that the encoding of the particular macroblock is performed in response to the calculated quantization step size and the rounding offset value of the first block.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 30, 2014
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Xiaoan Lu, Qian Xu, Cristina Gomila
  • Patent number: 8810629
    Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes: an image synthesis unit generating a synthesized image by inputting images photographed at different positions and connecting strip areas cut from the images. The image synthesis unit generates a left-eye synthesized image applied to display a 3-dimensional image by connecting and synthesizing left-eye image strips set in the images and generates a right-eye synthesized image applied to display a 3-dimensional image by connecting and synthesizing right-eye image strips set in the images. The image synthesis unit performs a process of setting the left-eye image strip and the right-eye image strip in an allowable range of set positions of the left-eye image strip and the right-eye image strip used to generate the left-eye synthesized image and the right-eye synthesized image, which are at different observing points, applicable to display the 3-dimensional images by acquiring the allowable range from a memory or calculating the allowable range.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 4, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 19, 2014
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Ryota Kosakai, Seijiro Inaba
  • Patent number: 8798150
    Abstract: A method, a system and a computer device for initiating bi-directional compression of a video stream in a packet switched network, based on delay tolerance of a service or application. A video frame recompression (VFR) utility determines an end-to-end (E2E) delay tolerance retrieved from a Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP) report. The VFR utility then determines the actual expected delay based on a deep inspection of packet headers. The VFR utility utilizes a processing opportunity delay (which determines whether the E2E delay tolerance is greater than the actual expected delay) to reprocess video content comprising Intra-coded (I) pictures/frames and Predicted (P) frames to improve compression efficiency. The VFR utility may also utilize a complexity ratio which is a ratio of the I-Frame rate and the P-Frame rate to select frames for compression. The VFR utility recompresses video content by replacing P-Frames with B-Frames.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 5, 2014
    Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC
    Inventors: Harsha Hegde, Tarun Agarwal
  • Patent number: 8780171
    Abstract: Disclosed herein is a video signal processor including: a combining process section adapted to superimpose a first marker signal on a first video signal component at a specific position and superimpose a second marker signal on a second video signal component at roughly the same position as the specific position; and a control section adapted to control the condition of superimposition of the first and second marker signals so that an image appears to indicate that the first and second marker signals are combined correctly when the first and second video signal components are combined in a correct phase relationship, and so that an image appears to indicate that the first and second marker signals are combined incorrectly if the first and second video signal components are combined in an incorrect phase relationship.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 15, 2014
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Koji Kamiya, Mayuki Hashi, Kinichi Ootsu
  • Patent number: 8780207
    Abstract: A computerised method of automatically acquiring a series of images, the method comprising the steps of: i) processing a data file containing a series of identifiers, each identifier corresponding to a geographic location of a property; ii) receiving location data from a geographic position sensing unit; iii) defining a camera search area (830) defined by the location data and a location of a camera relative to the location data; and iv) acquiring an image of a property when a geographic location (810a) of a property corresponding to one of the series of identifiers is within the camera search area (830).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 11, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 15, 2014
    Assignee: Mark Group Limited
    Inventor: William John Rumble
  • Patent number: 8767827
    Abstract: A method of decoding a video signal is disclosed. The present invention includes obtaining identification information indicating whether a coded picture of a current NAL unit is an inter-view picture group, obtaining interview reference information of the inter-view picture group, and constructing a reference picture list for inter-view prediction using the inter-view reference information according to the identification information, wherein the inter-view reference information includes view identification information of an inter-view reference picture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2014
    Assignee: LG Electronics Inc.
    Inventors: Byeong Moon Jeon, Seung Wook Park, Yong Joon Jeon, Yeon Kwan Koo
  • Patent number: 8754935
    Abstract: A microstructure inspection method which inspects an angle of a sidewall of a sample microstructure pattern, the method including: taking SEM photographs of the sample microstructure pattern under plural SEM conditions; measuring a width of a white band at an edge portion of the sample microstructure pattern in the SEM photographs; and calculating the angle of the sidewall of the sample microstructure pattern on the basis of an amount of change in the width of the white band due to the change between the plural SEM conditions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 19, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 17, 2014
    Assignee: Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Isao Yonekura, Hidemitsu Hakii